


dirty dancing in the moonlight

by kwritten



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Always-a-girl-Ronan, Background: gansey and adam and noah, Dark Girls, F/F, Gender or Sex Swap, Lucid Dreaming, Polyamory, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Threesome - F/F/F, Trans Character, transgirl!kavinsky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 20:01:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11562318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: Prompt::trc, f!ronan/blue(/f!kavinsky)Something is wrong, I can't explainEverything changed when the birds cameYou'll never know what they might do if they catch you too earlyWe need to fly ourselves before someone else tells us howSomething is off, I feel like prey, I feel like praying





	dirty dancing in the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> I chose to give Kravinsky a male-to-female trans identity, but shift Ronan to *always female*. 
> 
> Please feel free to correct me on anything hinky you see here. I am a white cisfemale and am always open to any critiques of my characterizations. 
> 
> I hope you like it.

Her parents don’t understand it - how could they - they don’t understand the pain her own body gives her every moment of every day. Who could?

She wants to scratch her skin down to the bone, expose all the raw bits of herself, the sinews and muscles and fatty joints and scream _this this this_. 

Not exactly _me_ , she’s not quite ready for anyone to see that.  
For anyone to know all the bits of her that aren’t flesh and blood but dreams and hopes and stardust. 

“How can you separate yourself into all these parts?” the therapist asks, in a bored sort of tone like he’s expecting a quip answer. “What do _you think_ is the root of your ability to disassociate.”

He asked like he already knew the answer. So she gave him only a portion of the truth, let him write the rest. It was too easy, using people’s assumptions against them. Being weak and having people perceive you as weak are two different things. It didn’t take her long to recognize that. 

Took her less time to learn how to hide in that. 

She looks him square in the eye, the glare of the window refracting off his glasses, and responds solemnly, “Well, God put me in the wrong body - so They must need me to get really good at … what did you call it? _Disassociate_ ,” she smirked a little, “for something pretty important.”

“So you think you were ordained by god himself? As what? A modern-day prophet?” he was still bored. Presumably she wasn’t his first patient with a Jesus-complex. Bully for him.

She was already gone. 

She was tired of people telling her where her anger came from, where her restlessness was stored inside of herself, where all her sharp edges began. She knew who she was, had always known. 

She was a dreamer.  
She was a creator.  
Yeah, maybe she _was fucking divine_. 

It wasn’t like God was gonna come down on Their cloud and set her to rights, read her the riot act, smite her down with a lightning bolt. 

~~Right?~~

 

 

 

At night, in her dreams, Blue sometimes felt like a ticking bomb.

When she was around seven or eight she had a dream that she _was_ a bomb, ticking peacefully and lazily in the corner of the living room, forgotten under a pile of someone’s dirty laundry. While the house went about its busy life - girls everywhere in various ages and with various amounts of psychic energy buzzing through the spaces between the bomb-that-was-Blue and everything else, powerful and terrifying in each of their own beautiful ways. The terrifying thing wasn’t that they didn’t notice - that was a bit par for the course for all of them on one day or another in a household this large - but that Blue-that-was-a-bomb, wasn’t worried or rushed or anxious. There she sat, for days, ticking slowly and carefully and never came the rush of a coming conclusion, or the anxiety of time running out. 

The feeling of being dangerous and calm never fully left her. 

Living as she did, surrounded by nosy, influential, _superstitious_ women, Blue never mentioned the dream. Not the first time nor the half-a-dozen times after. She had no intention of allowing yet another aspect of her life to become fodder for her female relations’ speculations and weighty predictions. Her fate was her own, thank you very much. 

Mostly, she tried to think of ways to fix the dream - become the thing that _happened_ , rather than patiently _waited_ placidly for something to happen. 

One night, in her dream, she wrestled herself out of the bomb, recreated her body out of air and impatience, and smiled down at the bomb. 

She walked out of the room, out the front door, down the sidewalk, without looking back, only feeling and hearing the heat and crash of the explosion once her bare feet touched down into the dewy, thick grass of a meadow that bore no resemblance to anything the world honestly had to offer. 

It was there, a smudge of soot on her cheek, her short hair whipping around her head, an intense heat at her back, a devilish smile on her face -- that she saw the most beautiful girl in the world. 

She was spinning, arms outstretched with glee, a long skirt of lace and silk in deep magenta spreading out around her, long hair tangling and dancing behind her. Blue smiled crookedly at her and wondered - now that she had taken charge of the dream, was this _her_ wish or….?

But before she could complete the thought, the girl stopped and gaped at her. 

_Who are you?_ she whispered.

Blue laughed. Deep and full. 

She was Wonderland finding her Alice, she was Tink spotting Wendy high in the sky, she was every place a girl shouldn’t be and she wanted - oh, more than anything she had ever wanted when she was awake - to kiss the beautiful girl along her sharp collarbone and thin fingers and long neck until Reality was this girl and this place and these trees and this damp grass and this absurd feeling of freedom and power.

The girl grabbed her by the wrist and demanded - eyes and voice full of a fear Blue knew she didn’t conjure and couldn’t possibly grasp the source of - _WHO ARE YOU._

When she woke up, there was a purple bruise around her wrist and the memory of a kiss she wanted, but never gave. 

 

 

 

Getting into an all-boys private school when you don’t have the right grades - or genitals - was surprisingly easy when your father could pull things out of his dreams and your best friend was the darling son of Washington with all the makings of a future POTUS running through his blue veins. 

“ _Ronan_ ,” she’d said emphatically in her low, hoarse voice, sitting between her brothers and father in the Headmaster’s office. Father had shrugged with a look of masculine-chagrin on his face in the presence of such a female and they’d all nodded and smiled - the teachers, the students, the janitorial staff…. Oh, not the librarian. She was absurdly suspicious of Ronan from the first moment and consequently - the only person Ronan respected at all. 

Monmouth solved the problem of dorms and Ronan’s terrible attendance habits solved most of the instructor’s strange and antiquated fears. They suggested she take an off-campus athletics class and was subsequently banned from every rock climbing wall, yoga studio, and kick-boxing class in the Tri-County area. She’d only shrugged at this development. It didn’t really concern her.

Not much concerned her. 

And then father died.

 

 

 

There was a _girl_ running amok in her dreams.

She found her in the meadow, in a house she’d never seen before, climbing a tree with her bare, brown legs swinging as though she had no fear in the world. She found her under her bed, reading, at the kitchen table eating yogurt, settled in the passenger’s seat of her car, tucked into a room that technically didn’t exist when Awake stitching fabric into absurd bits of clothing. 

There was a _girl_ running amok in her dreams. 

And though she didn’t say a word, a sneaking suspicion began to grow that she was Real.

 

 

 

Blue dreamt the strangest dreams.

She didn’t tell her relations. 

They’d make far too much of far too little and she didn’t really have the stomach for any of it.  
Or the patience. 

Hell, she hardly had the patience to be dealing with this new nightly nightmare. 

_What did you think would happen?_

Sometimes, the trees spoke Latin. And sometimes, she did, too. 

_What did you think would happen, when you let that bomb go off?_

Not this.  
Whatever _this_ was. 

There were two girls here - one thin and ethereal and beautiful; one dark and strong and beautiful. The thin one had long, long hair that changed color all the time. The dark one kept the hair above her left ear shaved nearly to the scalp, while black hair grew wild and long everywhere else. The ethereal one had knobby knees and loved lace and fast cars. The strong one had a beautiful raven and a farm and talked to the trees and loved fast cars. 

She was starting to fall in love with them, her dream girls. 

Except that…

Little by little… she was starting to suspect that they weren’t dreams at all.

And if that was true - what was _she_? A bomb, a dream, a battery, or? Maybe something new. 

(God she hoped it wasn’t a damsel.)

 

 

Ronan liked to think that she was all edges and hard sounds and danger. 

She wasn’t.

Ronan liked to think that she had skin of diamond and bones of steel and there was nothing in the world that could break her. 

She wasn’t. 

(Don’t tell.)

Ronan liked to think that people were afraid of her. It helped her protect her small, small, fragile heart. She was paper and dust, she’d blow over on a windless day from the beat of a butterfly’s wings. 

It was easier if they were afraid, if they thought that her teeth were sharp and her bite was worse than her bark, it was the strongest armor she had. 

Especially from herself. 

Ronan bowed her head in her beautiful church, stained glass windows letting in dim, dappled light that danced across her dark skin and tangled in her wild hair as if trying to paint and tame her into something resembling the saint she strove to be. Ronan bowed her head and silently begged for forgiveness for the darkness in her heart that she knew everyone saw so clearly. 

They did. 

(It wasn’t real. Her heart was soft, black feathers and dappled sunlight descending through foliage and glass; her heart was the purest thing in her life, if only she’d thought to trust herself enough to look past the things people read into her gloomy silences and hoarse laughter.)

Bearing witness to darkness didn’t forge one into the same stuff. 

No one bothered to tell her that. There was no one around to remind her. 

Ronan sank down onto her knees in her beautiful church, soft heart full of desire and longing and deep understanding of desperate things beyond her grasp. 

Ronan liked to think that she was all edges and harsh laughter and danger. 

She wasn’t. 

(Someone tell.) 

 

 

 

“Kavinsky,” she insisted. All shaved-head and dark lipstick and perfect eyebrows and pristine uniform of her. 

Not _Joseph_.

Not _Jo_. 

Not _Josephine_.  
(Only her mother was allowed to call her that.)

Just: Kavinsky. 

A small niche of these private school asshats actually respected that about her. Didn’t _quite_ know how to deal with the fact that she wasn’t really the most obvious _she_ they’d ever met. 

Not like Ronan. 

The only other girl on campus. 

Fresh-faced and brown with her wild hair and her neutral makeup and her strong limbs she kept wrapped up in the same uniform they gave everyone, but she wore with a wrinkled, nonchalant grace… sleeves rolled up to the elbows, tie in two straight lines down her chest, top three buttons never done and only one tail tucked into the slacks. She was everything Kavinsky wasn’t - and never wanted to be. 

She was perfect without trying and that was exhausting enough. 

What irritated Kavinsky was the way her heart fluttered when she saw Ronan walking down the hallway, loose gait and sandwiched between two boys that had a way of appearing like the physical manifestations of her own little shoulder angel and demon guides with their arms slung around her shoulders or her waist, a look of constant worry on the dark one and a look of constant, absent anxiety on the other. What irritated Kavinsky was how she knew when Ronan entered a room without seeing - how the air shifted to make room for her, how she seemed to carry dream and light and shadow with her in equal parts, how she managed to be unobtrusive and vibrant in the same breath.

It was exhausting, hating Ronan. 

But it kept her crawling out of bed every morning. 

And that was…. Something. 

Anything was worth a momentary reprieve from her silent dream girl. 

Even hate. 

Maybe. 

Hate sat on Kavinsky’s skin the way her mother calling her _sweetie_ sometimes crawled over her like a curse instead of an endearment. Love sat on Kavinsky’s skin the way the side-eye looks glancing off her thin frame and shaved head in public restrooms sometimes made her wish she could schluff off her skin and burn the whole world. 

She liked being dangerous, liked the feel of a cigarette between her thin lips as she pressed harder on the gas pedal and watched the world blur by. She liked being sharp and cruel, laughing at another’s pain, stepping on fingers instead of slipping by, killing with a smile. 

Her mother says she reminds her of a distant great-aunt who went to prison for killing her neighbor’s husband with a shovel. “Laughed all the way to the jail,” the family teases at Thanksgiving and under the lights of Christmas decorations. “Couldn’t even keep a straight face during the trial.”

“ _And then what_?” Kavinsky wants to know - with her scabbed knees and dry elbows and a scar running a silver line through her thin upper lip from a fight with a cousin twice the size of her. 

But there was no answer. Just shrugs. 

Her father says she reminds him of his younger sister, someone nearly as sharp of words and teeth as a girl could possibly be. “Came out of the womb kicking and screaming,” he grins, “left that way, too - cursing at the doctors and throwing hospital pudding cups at the wall.”

“ _And then what_?” Kavinsky begs - with those dark circles under her eyes and long hair plaited in two long braids down her thin back, the sharp bones of her spine poking through the thin fabric of her dress like a symbol of things to come. 

But there was no after. Just a tombstone.

Girls, Kavinsky was taught by the world, burned bright and hard, destruction in their eyes and weapons in their smiles, and then ended. 

As if she was made from infancy to die young and the thought was one of the few things in the world that wrapped her senses in comfort. 

Born.  
Burn.  
Bury. 

Hate sat on her skin like a whalebone corset cutting off her air like in the terrible romance novels her grandmother kept stored in the hall closet behind the bottle of bleach. Love sat on her skin like an ill-fitting body suit made of burlap, all thick and rough and wrong. 

Oh… but how _good_ it felt to hate Ronan Lynch. With her husky voice and her bright eyes and her long hair and broad shoulders. 

Oh? But how _good_ it felt to love her dream girl. With her silent condemnations and short hair and strange clothes and calming presence. 

Every fact has an exception. 

 

 

The thin one began with a smile. 

It wasn’t anything like any smile Blue had ever seen before. It was the kind of smile she had always imagined Anne Boleyn gave the crowd in the moments before the ax came down. A smile that blamed everyone who saw it for the death hanging over their head, a smile that took credit for every terrible thing anyone had ever thought - even if none of it had been ever been true. 

It was a smile that told a story of darkness and pain and claimed the story was _true_.

It thrilled Blue to the bone. 

 

The strong one began with a smile. 

It wasn’t anything like any smile Blue had ever seen before. It was the kind of smile she had always imagined Joan of Arc had felt spread across her face in the moments after she first heard the voice of god. A smile that drifted across skin in the most ethereal yet physical way, a smile that defied mortality and immortality in one bold stroke - even as it acknowledged that such a thing was impossible. 

It was a smile that told of the _awe_ fulness of the world and the heavens and dared you to see it, too. 

It soothed Blue to the bone. 

 

She learned that there was a difference between dreaming that you are an inanimate object, and suddenly becoming an active agent in the physical world. She learned that there was a difference between being seen and being _seen_ and being allowed to see. 

Slowly, the dreamscapes changed. In ways she maybe didn’t notice at first. Softer edges where before there had been sharp lines, color when there had once been shadow, space where there had not been before. 

They were making room for her. 

Soon, maybe they’d speak to her. 

Maybe…. 

Maybe she’d even know how to respond.

 

 

 

There were constants in Ronan’s life. 

Her brothers. Beautiful and ugly and part of her.  
Monmouth.  
Gansey’s quest.  
Adam’s beautiful hands and beautiful mouth.

(If she could devour boys she would devour Adam first. )

Noah.  
Just Noah.  
Chainsaw, hovering in her dreams.  
Latin.

 

_d r e a m s_

 

There was a girl in her dreams. She spoke Latin to the trees and smiled at the stars and danced in the rain and read old paperbacks perched on mountain ledges with skinny legs swinging in the air. 

There was a girl in her dreams. Ronan watched her from afar and something lurched in her dark heart. 

There was a girl in her dreams and she thought - maybe - she was everything Ronan _could_ have been had she not been who she was. 

There was a girl in her dreams. This wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened when Ronan let her guard down and so she let it evolve as it was wont. 

And then one night, she smiled as the girl purred happily at Chainsaw in a secret language the two had contrived in the past few weeks. 

And then one night, she smiled at the girl and the girl smiled back and Ronan realized for the first time… that girl haunting the brightest parts of her dreamscape? 

She was real. 

No . . . 

She was _Real_.

Ronan woke with a start, Chainsaw heavy, solid, warm, and breathing in her arms.

 

There were constants in Ronan’s life. 

Her brothers. Beautiful and ugly and part of her.  
Monmouth.  
Gansey’s quest.  
Adam’s beautiful hands and beautiful mouth.

(If she could devour boys she would devour Adam first. )

Noah.  
Just Noah.  
 **Chainsaw. First in the corner of her eye in every dream. Then in her room, in her arms, on her shoulder.**  
Latin.

_a d r e a m g i r l?_


End file.
